Negotiations with Iran Require Mutual Restraint

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 10 Feb 2014

Jan Oberg – TRANSCEND Media Service

The deal between Iran and the P5+1 – the Security Council’s Five Permanent members + Germany of November 24, 2013 must be trated with utter care on both sides.

Despite often being called a dictatorship, it is thanks to the elections in Iran that this historical new beginning has become possible.

The road to the next round of negotiations – in Vienna on February 18 – should not be paved with threatening, hawkish or humiliating statements by various Western politicians and media.

Dr. Farhang Jahanpour of Oxford University, board member of TFF and for many years co-operating with BBC has written two background articles that you just should not miss up to these new talks.

One is a very short guide to Iran’s modern history.

If we do not understand the culture and history, we are bound to make offensive statements and take wrong steps.

You probably don’t have time to read all the thick books; but this will take you only a few minutes and offer substantial, reliable knowledge from a person who used to be professor at Isfahan’s University.

The second article is about the need for restraint in statements and for respect for the actual content of the November 24 Deal. War is not an option on the Western table – and iit has not been on the Iranian table for about 250 years.

Iran is a 7000 year old civilisation that deserves to be treated with respect. The P5+1 and Iran are in this together now. War and sanctions talk is immature.

There are huge benefits also to the West in Iran opening up and inviting the world to co-operate – as did also President Rouhani so convincingly at Davos.

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Prof. Jan Oberg is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace, Development and Environment, and director/founder of the Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF).

Go to Original – icontact-archive.com

 

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